


worthless to two

by amitye



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Dysfunctional Friendship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mercutio Lives, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:04:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amitye/pseuds/amitye
Summary: Benvolio and Mercutio take avantage of the duel to fake their deaths and start a new life away from Verona. It doesn't go as they expected
Relationships: Juliet Capulet/Romeo Montague, Mercutio & Benvolio Montague & Romeo Montague, Mercutio/Benvolio Montague, kind of a romercutio bent but i dont feel like it's what people want when they search the tag
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	worthless to two

**Author's Note:**

> For Alley, though this has way too much Bencutio to be a good late birthday present.

"Why did we bother to come up with a secret knock if you were going to wait out in the open anyway?"

Mercutio shrugged and hugged his knees, eyes still lost in the swirl of fireflies above them. "You never know when we're gonna need our own secret code."

Benvolio sat beside him and kissed his bare shoulder. "Well, it's warm enough I might consider letting you have your way with me here on the riverbank." 

He threw a glance inside the fishing hut where they used to play as children - their fort against Capulet boys, their stage, their treasure trove - still as he remembered it, with only a moldy straw mattress in one corner and the fishing traps he and Romeo had valiantly tried to reproduce from a book scattered in the other.  
He felt a little strange just unceremoniously going there and fucking on the remains of their childhood innocence, fitting as it currently might feel. 

"Bold." Mercutio leaned his head on Benvolio's shoulder. "How did you run away from Romeo?"

"I just told him I was going to bed early because I was busy in the morning so we couldn't go out and then sneaked out the window." Mercutio whistled, which made him blush a little. "Not that it was necessary, probably. The last girl he's sending unwanted poems to is some Capulet he met at the convent library and that's just a smidge less unspeakable than us." 

"But you still aren't telling him, are you?"

He sighed. "Listen, we agreed we would be discreet about this."

"I know, I'm not keen for anyone to know either, but it's Romeo we're talking about, what harm would it do?" 

"I don't know. He could tell by mistake, or if my uncle found us and knew he knows he could be in trouble… there's just no point. Maybe he'll figure it out on his own." Mercutio snorted. "Alright, that's stupid, but I'm sick of being scared all the time, you know? I've not managed to feel safe about anything since I was..."

"Twelve?" Mercutio's thumb rubbed tenderly against his palm. Benvolio shook his head.

"Six or seven. When is it children start noticing the world around them. If they do at all, of course." 

Mercutio took his hand back and swatted him. "You're just being mean. He escapes inside his head and you escape on the outside, but we all need it. Though I for myself prefer to escape inside-"

Benvolio kissed him abruptly. "I swear to God I'll punch you in the face if you finish that sentence." Mercutio giggled innocently, but didn't press further. "And I don't escape anywhere at all." 

"No?" Mercutio dramatically furrowed his brows like a street mime. "Then, pray tell, why is a responsabile lad as you are here with a rascal of my ilk instead of being settled down with an heir of the way?"

"Because I'm fucking seventeen." He muttered, rolling his eyes. "And I've told you a thousand times that you're not escapism to me, but if you enjoy calling yourself an useless rascal so much, suit yourself." 

Mercutio giggled and pushed him down in the sand. "Well, well, looks like I snatched the sweetest Montague!"

"No, Romeo is the sweet Montague. I'm the smart Montague."

"This is the saddest thing I've ever heard."

He laid next to him and took his hand, staring at the stars above them. "Where would you escape, if you could?"  
Benvolio jumped at the sudden question. He considered saying he had nothing to run from, but blatant lies never worked on Mercutio. 

"Genoa, maybe." He confessed with a whisper. "It would be nice to live near the sea. Or Bologna. University parties, wine and singing. But pretty much anywhere would be easier than here."

"Mh-mh." Mercutio closed his eyes and smiled, as if deep in a beautiful dream. "Greece." 

There was no elaboration. "Oh, I like it. Sunshine and olive trees. If we could travel in time to when they had those parties where people would dance naked and drink and wait until they were too trashed to make sense to start talking about philosophy, then it would be just perfect for you."

"Mh-mh" Mercutio giggled in delight. "And when they didn't have kings and princes either."

Benvolio kissed his hand, a little ashamed of the sappiness of those fantasies, but he was enjoying it way too much. 

"We could really have it, you know." Mercutio whispered in his ear. "We have nothing to lose here."

Benvolio bit his lip. "We'd have to fake our deaths."

Mercutio laughed. "Dramatic."

He stuck his tongue at him. "I enjoy the thought someone would look for us, if we just disappeared. At least Romeo, I suppose."

"True, true." 

They were quiet for a moment. Benvolio could hear the crickets in the trees above them, the soothing sound of Mercutio's breath before he spoke again, this time in a fair whisper. "I think it's the only way we can be who we are meant to be."

Benvolio was scared of asking what he meant, and he had often been scared of Mercutio's idea of who they were meant to be. But in that moment he felt no fear, just a longing so intense he could feel it gnaw on his heart. "Then we will."

*** 

“Stop- stop, Volio, fuck, wait a moment. It hurts-” Benvolio froze, biting his lip guiltily, and let him lean against the wall. He stroked Mercutio's hair as he closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath, ready to grab him if he collapsed.

"We can slow down a little, or I can try to carry you, but… Mercutio, it looks bad. I have to take you to a doctor fast, we shouldn't wait" he half begged, blinking back tears.

Mercutio half smirked at his words, half grimaced in pain. "You're so silly when you're worried. It's really just a scratch, I wouldn't lie to you. I just need to save my strength for the journey.” 

"What now?" He frowned, trying to pull him back on his feet. "If you mean the journey into the light, first of all you won't… it's very unlikely you'd die of a cut like this, second, it's not the moment for metaphorical nonsense, alright? Just…” Mercutio raised his laughing eyes on him and he was struck wordless for a moment. “No, you can’t mean…”

“Well, I really thought you’d be more excited than this. Bit late to start acting all cool and uninterested, don’t you think?”

“You’re talking nonsense, you’re not well.” He pulled up his shirt to give another glance to the cut and quickly touched his lips on Mercutio’s forehead - he wasn’t burning up yet, but his grip on reality was clearly slipping all the same. He grasped his hand and wrapped his other arm around his waist, hoping to calm him down. “I still want to run away with you, of course I do, but now? Can you even stand a long ride in this state? I have no plan where to go, nothing prepared, I assumed we would talk about it at least a little before we left!”

“When, if not now?” Mercutio jumped on his feet, suddenly incensed. “When are we going to get such a good chance again? You’ll skewer me up and say I’m dead yourself, when you figure the time is right? I don’t think so.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll think of a plan that doesn’t require you to be skewered and ride off to nowhere as you bleed to death. We just need to wait for the right time.”

“When?” This time he practically screamed it.   
  
“Volio, I know you’re scared and I know I act like I’ll never grow up, but unless you have a lot more inclination to believe in fairytales than I thought, you must realize the only way I have to never grow up is this.” He touched his wound and held his bloody hand to Benvolio’s cheek, making him flinch. “I really want to have a life with you. I want it so much. But we’re not children anymore and I’m scared the more we dither the more we’ll lose our nerve and someday I’ll blink and you’ll be married with three brats in a tow and we’ll try being still friends but after a while, we’ll be too ashamed to even look at each other and I’ll die if that’s what becomes of me. I’ll die.” 

His eyes were on fire, but his voice trembled. Benvolio wrapped his arms around him, stroked his cheeks and his hair, completely at loss for any words beyond a mumbled, sing-song “No-no-no.”  
"I love you." He managed to choke out in the end. "None of this will happen and we'll be fine. I'll take care of everything." 

The falseness of that confidence was painful, but he had said and he couldn't take it back.  
Mercutio beamed with excitement and nuzzled his face in his neck to kiss him. "Go then. I'll hide until you're done."  
"I might take quite a bit. It won't be a quick conversation to tell everyone… to tell Romeo… and I do want to run home and pack some things. I don't think you can just curl up in a corner and hope no one passes by."

Mercutio, wondrously, actually gave it some thought, then his face lit up. "I'll go at the fishing hut. No one goes there anymore." 

Benvolio bit his lip. It was a hot day, but the place was pretty much deserted and even if some stray child passed by he doubted they would venture into the house. "Alright" he said "let's make it quick. I can't take this anymore already."  
He helped Mercutio tie his handkerchief on the cut, kissed him and darted up again, burning on the inside with purpose. 

He knew he should be weeping, he knew that, but all his half conceived dreams of freedom and love and other things he would have called fanficul nonsense but months ago had excited him so much he couldn’t bring tears to his eyes even looking at the sun directly. That didn’t matter - tears were always getting stuck inside him and coming out hours too late, it wouldn’t seem strange, Romeo would fall over sobbing for sure, poor thing, and that would be distracting enough.

The square was in a riot, groups of Montagues and Capulets seemingly clamoring in every corner. Some turned to him with questioning eyes but he ignored them and looked at Romeo, who sat curled by the edge of the fountain, hugging himself, his eyes shut as he muttered some prayer under his breath. 

“Romeo” he called out, but his voice was cracked through with dread and he was too out of it already to hear him. He called him again and grabbed his shoulder, with a surge of impatience he regretted when he felt how bad he was trembling. “Ben?” He stared up at him, wide eyed, anxious and hopeful. Benvolio closed his eyes and tried in vain to harden himself.

“Mercutio’s gone, Romeo. I’m…”  
He trailed off. Did it make any sense to say he was sorry? He didn’t really make sense to say anything. 

He held Romeo tight when he all but jumped in his arms, ran his fingers through his hair. “He’s in a better place now, he's free, his soul is free" he mumbled. It was pretty much the truth and he hoped it would help, Romeo had always believed in this sort of thing and he had seen every scar and bruise on Mercutio's skin, every way this city had punished him for being shameless and true. It didn't. His soft sobs took an hysterical sound that almost felt like laughter. 

"No, please, no. Breathe." He led him to sit on the edge of the fountain and tentatively rubbed his back. "Breathe, come on. He wouldn't want you to torment yourself like this, you know that."

Romeo raised two suffering eyes on him and snapped, so bitterly it almost bled into sarcasm. "No? Is this not all my fault?"

"What? No!" It was hard to force the small reassuring smile he was trying for, even though in truth he didn't have any reason to be somber. 

"You did your best. You tried to stay out of this fight. It wasn't your fault that bastard started it."

Romeo brushed off his words and his caresses, burying his face in his hands. "Out of the fight, yes. So that's it? He died so I could stay good and pure and clean.” His voice dropped to a faint, terrified squeak. “So she wouldn’t hate me. He didn’t even know why and he still wanted to save me, I don’t deserve it, I don’t…”

Benvolio was lost. She? He loosened his hold on Romeo slightly, but kept stroking his hair and even tried to wipe this tears, though Romeo recoiled violently from that. “No, no, no what are you talking…”  
He froze. Romeo was looking up, over his shoulder. Benvolio turned a little and saw Tybalt in the corner of his eye - bloodsoaked and half out of his mind, screaming something in challenge. Fuck, fuck, fuck, why had he come back?

He felt Romeo’s hand wander over his belt, at his sword hilt. Could he - no, this was Romeo, he would never -  
He tumbled on the cobblestones as Romeo rose up and pushed him away, sword drawn.  
“Mercutio’s soul is still just above our heads, one of us or both will keep him company!” 

Benvolio jumped on his feet, ran after him, pulled him back with a revolting, wet, sucking sound - his blade slipped out of Tybalt's chest and fell on the ground with a clang. Romeo slumped onto him like a puppet whose strings were cut. Benvolio dragged him as far away as possible from Tybalt, vividly aware of the Capulets closing in around them, menacing. Romeo's eyes were vacant, fixed on his bloody hands. He had to shake him several times to get any reaction. 

"Are you hurt?" He didn't think Tybalt had time to strike him, but it was hard to tell, with his shirt all soaked in blood and him looking so off.

Romeo sniffled. "Fortune's fool is what I am."

He let out a strangled little laugh. "Good."  
Every part of him longed to shake him, to yell "What were you thinking?" and see if it did anything good for the rising flood of contradicting feelings that threatened to drown him, but he was aware that this was the mess they'd made and the least he could do was thinking rationally. 

The prince had pronounced his death sentence on anyone who disturbed the peace of the streets, but Romeo had only joined to avenge the prince's own kin, he would never be punished, and he hoped his uncle could keep him safe from Capulet retribution even two men down - there was no reason to fear. But all that didn't change thay Romeo had become a killer, there in his arms - it was his greatest fear since he was a child and he never once in his life thought it would happen to Romeo before him. 

But wasn't it almost like they had all three killed Tybalt together? They were surely all guilty. It was somewhat fitting, since he had always been their torment- they'd taken a plague from Verona, really, he thought remembering Mercutio's crazy speech, especially now he had carefully turned himself and Romeo away so they couldn't see how more like any other boy of eighteen he seemed, lying down in his own blood. 

He took a deep breath and caught Romeo's face in his hands. "I'm sorry. I should have taken your knife. I should have done something. But now you have to be strong." Romeo bit down a little whimper, but he seemed to have run out of tears at least. "Go to church. To that friar you like so much. Ask for asylum, beg forgiveness for your sins, whatever you want, but don't come out until there's news, alright? The prince is coming. You'll be killed if you don't go."

Even in this state the prospect seemed to have some effect on Romeo. Benvolio watched him run until he was out of sight and then turned to face the crowd. 

The prince had come with his guard, his aunt and uncle and the Capulets - someone must have ran off to call them while he took Mercutio away. How come he had made such a vivid impression of being on the verge of death to everyone and Benvolio felt like his tongue would fall off for one simple lie?  
"Benvolio, who began this fighting? I was told Mercutio…"

He had to be brave. He would never have to worry about being brave again if he got this one thing right. So he willed tears to run down his cheeks, took a deep breath and lied in front of every authority he had always been terrified of. He thought of Mercutio waiting for him at the end and his voice didn't waver once. 

***

Mercutio was roused by a burning sensation on his right side, so shockingly painful he gasped and trashed helplessly, as if to escape his own body. He felt Benvolio's cool fingers grasp his bare shoulder and then brush against his lips to shush him, but he was still lightheaded and the smell of alcohol on them turned his stomach. 

"Easy now, you're definitely overreacting." Benvolio scolded him, but he still gave his hand to hold as he dabbed strong brandy on his wound with the free one, humming softly to calm him down. He gripped it and gritted his teeth until he finished him off with a kiss, finally able to relax as Benvolio bandaged him back up, this time with linen strips a bit more suited to the task than his already soaked handkerchief. There was some dirty joke in how deftly he had undressed him and laid him down with his head in his lap without waking him, but he didn't feel particularly in the mood to bring it into words.

"You took your time. I was bleeding to death here" he complained instead. It still felt slightly surreal that Benvolio was here with him and not thrown in the dungeons with the accusation of trying to abduct him or something of that kind - as if he could blink any moment and wake up in his bed whole and disappointed.

Benvolio smiled down at him. "Things got complicated, and I needed to testify on how the fight went, but everything's alright now. We can leave at sundown." 

"That's still a while away. I want you to tell me everything! How did you get it past my uncle?"

Benvolio flushed a little. "Very shamefully. I had no time to think of a plan at all. I had to tell him you told me you wouldn't wait for death to come take you at her leisure and leapt dramatically in the river."

_"What?"_

Benvolio was bright Capulet red. "I don't exactly have a stash of bodies that look like you for every occasion. I had to improvise."

Mercutio turned around and tried in vain to stifle his laughter into Benvolio's thigh. "The… the smart Montague, ladies and gentleman! The man with the plans!" 

"I have plans when I think them through, you know? They don't spring fully formed from my head like Achilles out of Zeus'"

Mercutio threw his head back, on the verge of hysterical tears. "Volio, sweetheart, if you want me to live, I beg you to stop talking."

Benvolio crossed his arms defensively. "Don't you think it says more about you that it was believed without a doubt, more than about me for coming up with it?" 

Mercutio had to acknowledge that was probably sound. "Always right, always right. I guess I have to be very thankful I have a whole fresh new life to establish my new reputation as a sensible person, don't I?"  
Benvolio's glare was eloquent.  
"Well, you'll see. But tell me, how did people take the news? Any maids tearing their hair? Did my noble uncle weep?"

Here a flick of rage flashed in Benvolio's soft hazel eyes. "Of course." He avoided Mercutio's glance, busying himself with looking for their savings under the mattress.

"Volio."

He sighed. "Only Romeo wept. Your uncle seemed upset enough, I think, but… I don't know. If he'd exile someone who risked his life to avenge you like a common murderer, clearly he values power over his own kin." 

"Are you surprised?" He kissed Benvolio's knuckles and smiled as if he didn't care and had never cared a day in his life. His clear indignation was adorable and somewhat comforting even, if he admitted to himself how warm it made him feel, but he didn't really see the point. "He'll find a new family embarrassment and Verona will find another clown. I'm honestly just touched at least Romeo bothered."

"He's a good kid." Benvolio muttered wistfully. Mercutio took a look at the blood painting his shirt and found the courage to ask the question that had been gnawing at him.  
"You said I was avenged?"

Benvolio nodded.  
"Tybalt is dead then?"

"He - yes. I hadn't expected…" 

"No, no, it's fine." He suppressed a surge of unwelcome memories of their childhood fights, when it was all for the fun of it without these oppressive power games. Hate had killed that Tybalt and put another in his place like the wretchedest of changelings, he was supposed to remember that. "He had it coming. Attacked you just yesterday morning for no reason and now Romeo. He was going too far."  
Benvolio gave him an hesitant smile, obviously dying to change the subject. Mercutio squeezed his hand. "I know how hard it was for you." He whispered. "Just remember you never have to do it again now. No intimidations, no vendettas. Where we're going, no one will expect to hate anyone or fight you in the streets for no reason." 

In his maybe somewhat addled state of mind, he had hoped for this to be comforting. Benvolio let himself fall on the mattress, burying his face in his hands. "Good God."  
Mercutio stroked his hair. "It's fine if you don't want to talk about it."

He laughed, half cheerful half despairing. "You're seriously thinking I killed Tybalt for absolutely no reason?" 

Mercutio frowned in confusion, then groaned and smacked him. "You made me give this whole maudlin speech for nothing. I thought your plan for yourself might be to get exiled on purpose." It didn't make any less sense than what Mercutio had just done. What was wrong with him then? Was he having second thoughts?

"No, you know, I couldn't be sure your uncle wouldn't just have me executed like you were a complete stranger." He grimaced in disgust, but his face was shadowed with something different. "Although I probably should have."

Mercutio frowned again. This was very unlike him. "Sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities, it's just, well, we just talked about this. I can't think of anyone else who'd bother to avenge me, and while you know I love your stoic silent act, I'm too worn out to take the words out of you with pincers right now."

Benvolio didn't smile. He bit his lip and looked away. "It was Romeo."

_"What?"_

He jumped up, his heart skipping a beat. He tried to picture the scene - poor little Romeo with his dreamy eyes and soft pink cheeks, bloody and raging, dragged into the fight, but the thought was so horrible it kept slipping away from his understanding. 

"I should have done it myself. I couldn't stop him." Benvolio sighed, hugging his knees.  
It shouldn't be so shocking maybe - he did know Romeo loved him even in the periods where he was perpetually somewhere else, and he had expected he'd be upset, but it wasn't very like him to react - he usually just curled up and sobbed until he had let it all out. Couldn't he choose a better moment to grow a spine? "Why didn't you tell me right away? Is he hurt? What will happen to him?"

"Nothing, nothing." Benvolio pulled him in a hug, too fast and too tight to give him any comfort, but Mercutio still clung to him with all his strength. "I told you, your uncle chose exile over the death penalty. It's probably the best he can hope for right now." 

Mercutio tried to picture Romeo again - falling on his knees, fingers pointed at him, ruined, an exiled murderer - and he shivered with rage. "The Capulets will still be out for his blood, we can't leave him here defenseless." He protested, reaching for the sword he was no longer wearing. Benvolio grabbed his face - too forcefully - and kissed his temple - too softly, he almost melted where he sat. 

"No. He's at the church for asylum now, tomorrow he'll go to Mantua, to his mother's family. They'll keep him safe and hopefully try to marry him off before he can get in some mess there too. You don't have to worry about anything."

Mercutio relaxed a little. Benvolio said that a lot, mostly when he wanted to make a show that he, personally, would generously take the burden to worry about anything he could conceivably worry about, but now he seemed to genuinely believe it. "If he's safe and out of Verona we could even laugh about all this in some time. He wouldn't rat us out anyway." 

Benvolio shrugged. "Maybe. I doubt anyone will care about what happened to us for long anyway. But now stop thinking about it, alright? I didn't want you to get all worked up and restless."

He rolled his eyes. "You're about seventeen years late on that."

"It's still bad for you, you know." Benvolio laid down next to him. "I hope it'll get better when we leave this cursed place. You didn't always used to be so angry either."  
Mercutio bit his lip and forced himself to keep things lighthearted. "You're really committed to erasing all the throwing rocks at Capulets we did."

Benvolio swatted him. "The Capulets provoked us. And you were an absolute sweetheart who only got into it to protect us because we were the worst scaredy kittens."  
"Were?" He dodged another smack. "You're really looking at me through eyes of love."  
"Is the opposite so irrational? That, instead, I love you _because_ you're a sweetheart."  
Mercutio snorted. "I'm sure there are a lot of attributes you took your liking to before that."  
Benvolio clamped his hand over his mouth. 

"Stop making it filthy. It's true. I remember I.. I'd ran after Tybalt, we were ten or so, I was such an idiot back then. And when I came back you were out on the shore, with your hair all mussed up and sun freckles everywhere. You had Romeo in your lap and you were kissing his bruises and telling him some story and I know… I know that's when I fell in love with you for the first time." 

Mercutio laughed and rolled his eyes. "You took your sweet time to make a move."

Benvolio pouted at him. "Well, that was right before you talked him into smearing you all over with honey and leaving you outside to see if you could catch butterflies that way, so that made me change my mind pretty fast. But it was the first of many times." 

"I can't believe it took you multiple times to figure out it was a bad idea."

By the concerned look that flashed in Benvolio's eyes he could see he had realized he wasn't really joking, but he didn't say anything, simply curling up around him. 

That was nice about him, perfect for Mercutio - it was annoying that he wanted to cling to these fanciful dreams of him being sweet and tender and whatnot instead of owning up the raging wreck in whose bed he had seen fit to jump in, but beyond the worst worries, he was perfectly happy to leave things unsaid in such a discreet, manly way. He wanted his body, his smiles, his company and his best attempts at love and understanding: none of the things that made him feel skewered and skinned more than open and bare. Nothing he could not give. 

How could he not want to leave for a chance to have fun and be happy with him? He pulled Benvolio's arms tighter around him and banished all doubts. They left when the sun went down and Mercutio didn't turn around to bid farewell to the city where he had been meant to die young. 

*** 

As he lay tossing and turning in Juliet's bed, Romeo thought of all the times he had been told finally getting laid would cure him of the usual dramatics and make him calm down for once. It made him feel guilty, for he had to admit nothing he had ever experienced compared to the pain he was feeling now and, more importantly, Mercutio made that argument so often, though with more clever and graceful words than his cousins, and had been the only one who laughed with him when he pointed out that Benvolio got laid regularly enough and still had never even once in his life calmed down. 

Still, it was terribly unfair that he was lying in bed with his new wife and for all he pressed her hand to his chest, snuggled against her and willed himself to dream of her delighted giggles and long black hair on her bare shoulders, Queen Mab brought him was fear and sorrow.  
It had started with Mercutio, so predictably that he had been more happy he could hear his voice again than anything. At first it was Mercutio as he was in the square, bloody and furious, calling him clumsy and stupid, a clueless child that knew nothing of fighting or honor or love with much harder words than he really had. 

Then, when he had woken up from that sweaty and trembling, another Mercutio had come pestering for his attention, fifteen year old Mercutio with his penchant for dark humor and long sullen silences, fixedly intent in drawing flowers and butterflies on his cheeks for the Carnival ball.  
"There" he had said, after staring at his work for a long silent moment, so close their noses where almost touching "looks much prettier on you than Valentine." 

Romeo had pouted, more irritated by the term of comparison chosen for him than flattered by the compliment. "I'd hope so, I'm not a child. Why is Valentine never here anyway?"

"He's a squire, off traveling the whole wild world with his knight." He turned his paintbrush to Benvolio, who hurried to wear his owl mask and take a few steps away for good measure. 

Mercutio sighed. "While I am left to languish in this hellish town, clearly in hope I will run into a sword before my time to inherit my uncle's throne comes and the dynasty will not be forever disgraced by my wretched self."

He had been mulling over that all through the party, messing up his dance steps and completely failing to invite the girl he had been sighing over for a walk in the garden as he wished. He wanted to tell Mercutio that he was so much smarter than anyone thought, that he would be a wonderful prince, that they would be his brothers if his family wasn't happy with him. 

He even daydreamed about him coming to live with them, so they could talk every time they needed to and share beds every night they wanted. But when he had started to explain that Mercutio had exchange a strangely hesitant glance with Benvolio and told him he was joking, that he was stuck in Verona by his uncle's side to learn about the city and become a good ruler and responsible man - and there another strange glance had been exchanged - "but that's a little bit like dying too." 

He hadn't known what to make of all that then - Benvolio's irritation at those words, Mercutio's melancholy mood and all the strange glances everyone but him seemed to either understand or ignore without a thought - but now he suspected Mercutio had never really meant that second part. That it was only to reassure him, that he had always thought he had been meant to die young, and why not die for a friend then?  
He could imagine him saying that, could imagine the fond, mischievous sparkle in his eyes.  
Romeo hid his head under the pillow, and bit his lip not to cry. 

Juliet came after that, though in strange and confusing forms that surely would have persuaded the former Romeo - the one who couldn't tell the difference between love in dreams and love in words and love in deed - that their love was doomed for good.

Juliet dressed in black, mixing a poison in her mother's lap, Juliet buried in the white tunic of her first communion, a ragdoll in her lap, Juliet in a real wedding dress, a veil on her head instead of daisies and rosemary twigs, as Tybalt's mangled corpse gave her away to him with a brotherly smile. Juliet twirling in the river's low waters wearing nothing but the bell bracelets from that fateful dance, honey dripping down her bare arms and dragonflies in her hair.  
Juliet handing him baby birds from the low branches of the trees as Benvolio piggybacked him through the woods to look for nests, red from the effort to not laugh aloud. 

They had done that all the time when they were younger, running off their family's hunting parties, but then Romeo's father would only roll his eyes at them and sigh "some hunters we have here" with a weary smile. Now his smirk was cruel and his eyes stony as he said "some killer", the shame in his voice like a slap, and when he turned to hide in Benvolio's arms he wasn't there. In reality, his mother had wept and his father had hugged him and told him to be strong and they both said he had done the right thing and the Capulet bastard deserved it, but even then there had been no explanation for why Benvolio wasn't there.  
He impulsively wrapped his arms around Juliet as if she was the last warm and living thing left on earth and let out a desperate sob. 

Her eyes fluttered open, tender and concerned even veiled with sleep. Romeo's heart sunk with guilt again.

"You can't sleep at all tonight, can you?"

"I'm sorry…"

"No, it's fine to cry." Juliet shifted on her side and ran her fingers through his hair - sparks, a deep warmth down his spine. Romeo curled up on himself and leaned against her touch, smiling despite himself. "You know, I had a friend who died too." 

He sniffled, hiding his face in the pillow. "I know, I...I'm sorry." He knew he should stop making this all about his woe and misfortunes, he had told himself that a thousand times as he walked there from the church - that he should be thanking God on his knees he was alive and ecstatic with joy that Juliet found it in herself to forgive him. How was it then he couldn't stop crying?

"No" Juliet whispered against his lips. "I don't mean Tybalt." 

“No?” He wanted to be relieved but all he felt was horror - that this had already happened to her twice in her fourteen years and that he had to find out like this - _I barely know this girl._ This had not brought him horror before - it used to fill him with tenderness and wonder about how much he had still to find out, like getting a new book or diving with his eyes open to spy the fish at the bottom - but now that he had no idea when he would be able to talk to her again all had changed. Would he ever know her? Would he ever hold her and kiss her tears again, or would they face everything else life saw fit to throw at them alone?

"Her name was Susan. She was my nurse's daughter." She took a deep breath. "I don't really have words for…"

"That's alright." He stroked her cheek and kissed the tip of her nose. "Conceit is richer in matter than in words and are but beggars those who can count their blessings." 

He smiled when her eyes lit up and she giggled at the memory of the words they had exchanged before their wedding, so clearly proud of her own wisdom, but her voice was sad when she spoke again. "But this one I can count just fine. Ten years. When we were ten she was walking in the garden with my baby brother to sing him to sleep, and some Montague lads broke in. No one ever told me what they even wanted revenge for. Just… knew my father wanted a male heir more than anyone else and Susie saw their faces, so…"

"What?" Romeo cried out and pulled her closer, but he wasn't really surprised. _It never ends and no one is ever free._ Benvolio had told him so many times, but he had never truly understood it until now that he was a murderer and surely accursed by her whole family too.

"Oh, they're dead now." Juliet went on, rubbing her eyes. "My father took care of that and they told me I should be happy with revenge"

She shivered and squeezed his hand tighter. Romeo kissed her knuckles and rested his forehead against hers. "But thing is, it was not really revenge, you know? They did it for my brother. No one really cared for Susan except me." She kicked at the sheets in frustration, her face turning an adorable slight red. "Now they'd kill you for killing Tybalt, as if my father hadn't been berating him and beating him for every little thing since he was a child. Tybalt would have killed you for talking to me even though he stopped playing with me when I was eight and he barely knows who I am anymore. It's never revenge. Just murder. I'm so sick of people pretending to love when every little thing they do is for money or for hate. At least I know you loved your Mercutio." 

Romeo felt himself blush for some reason. "I did love him very much, but it's no excuse. I'm sure you're being silly now and Tybalt loved you very much too. I saw you at the ball, when you were dancing together-" 

"He loved me when I was a little girl, and he loves me now because I'm his cousin and we have the same cursed name and he's told he must protect me, but he wouldn't if I was just some girl he met. I know that. No one at all loved me for who I am after Susie died and before I met you."

He kissed her softly and brushed her hair behind her ear. "If it helps, I really really do."

He doubted he had ever in his life been helpful, but Juliet seemed to find it to her liking, nestling against him like a chilly kitten. 

Romeo leaned his head on her shoulder, closed his eyes and tried to imagine if Benvolio would still love him as he did if he wasn't his cousin. He could so easily think he didn't, that when they were children he just enjoyed playing the part of the older brother and once they were older, well, they were a trio and he was used to him and they lived together too, how was he supposed to avoid him? 

It was unfair, he knew it was horribly unfair. That it was his fault and no one else's if he couldn't pick up on unsaid words, if he couldn't keep his feelings in check enough to be bearable, and a few annoyed glances didn't mean anything, the same way his shutting off ad sulking didn't. But then why hadn't Benvolio come see him? If all three of them had loved each other equally since they were children, surely the way Benvolio and Mercutio had started growing closer wasn't a matter of _how much_ but just _how?_

He wanted to lean out of the window and scream himself hoarse in frustration. He felt like he never understood anything, and the way he tried to understand them seemed so ridiculous to everyone (not that he felt he understood much more now that he had been in love and beloved. It was mostly a matter of giving up on understanding) and he couldn't even tell his cousin and his best friend that he was happy for them. 

His eyes filled with tears again. He couldn't talk about how much he missed Mercutio to no one but Benvolio, no matter how much he had wanted to unload his heart to Juliet or in confession. He had wanted to see him so much. But maybe for Benvolio it was all complicated. It was strange how when they were children they used to say "brother" as something worth more than "friend" or "cousin", but now it was clearly lesser, or he wouldn't have felt so annoyed when Mercutio had compared him to Valentine.

And Benvolio… sometimes he felt the need to be an older brother with him, and older brothers didn't cry or fall in love with the wrong people. He didn't have to do that with Mercutio - Mercutio had a way of making people's masks drop, and no one could replace him - and what was he going to do without him? He realized he wasn't even sure they could have talked about it even if Benvolio had come - those weren't words that could be said by an older brother, to a little brother who is crying and lost - older brothers don't go crazy with need, empty with grief. And without Mercutio he still had Juliet he could be just Romeo with, but could Benvolio be just Benvolio ever again? 

The idea of why, precisely, Benvolio might have been unable to come say goodbye and why his parents had been so strangely silent about him struck Romeo like lighting. He sunk his face in the pillow to muffle his sobs, but he had grown to hoarse to make any sound. 

***

They came to Venice one day and two nights later, at the crack of dawn. They had only snatched a few hours of sleep in the village where they'd stopped to have Mercutio stitched up, and from Benvolio's rotten mood he suspected he had been too worried to sleep even then, but he couldn’t help but smile when he saw the dawn light glitter on the canals, in a trail so solidly pink it looked like they could walk on it, skipping from ray to ray all the way to the ocean. They briefly held a purpose of taking a walk, exploring their surroundings and figuring out where to go from here, but at the first inn they came across that intention fell apart. 

Benvolio paid host and stable boy and bought a bottle of their best red wine, then scooped Mercutio up as soon as they were out of sight and stumbled into their room, unceremoniously throwing both of them on the bed.  
Mercutio was laughing so hysterically Benvolio had to kiss him six or seven times to bring him down to a discreet volume.

“Does this mean you’re claiming as your bride?” He somehow managed to choke out.

“Shh, shh” Benvolio kissed his neck. “You ass. I’m still in time to take you back to your uncle saying you want to change your life and be a dutiful heir.”

Mercutio swatted him and pressed a hand on his heart in outrage. “Over my dead body.”

“No!” Benvolio pouted and protectively wrapped his arms around him. “I never want to think about that again, even as a joke.”

“As my lord husband commands.” He stirred and laid down again, his head on Benvolio’s chest. “Do you have any more plans or is this the moment where we start doing things my style?”

Benvolio shook his head and popped the bottle open. “The plan tree is all dried up and this is not enough to water it.”

Mercutio whistled and clapped as he took a long swig, then took the bottle.  
“So, let’s see. I assume this isn’t our final destination?”

“No, we’re way too close to Verona yet. I was thinking we could look for a passage on some ship, they go everywhere in the world from here. But right now I just want to lie down and drink and… well for the next two weeks.”

“Mh-mh.” 

They laid down, drunk, kissed and well until mid afternoon, when Benvolio disappointingly decided they had to start behaving like members of human society again and they went out to explore. They walked up to the square and through the shops of the central part, initially with the intention of going to the harbor too, but at the first glass-blower's shop they found they got distracted for an hour staring at some old man pulling butterflies and seahorses from shapeless crystal and the sun begun to set before they realized. 

They ended up buying something for dinner on the street and eating sitting by the canal, throwing crumbs at the birds until the darkness enveloped them and Benvolio got antsy and dragged him back to the inn. "It's a strange city and neither of us is in a state to be fighting anyone tonight, we can go have fun tomorrow" he preemptively apologized, but Mercutio didn't really mind that. He didn't think they had ever gotten a full night where they could sleep in each other's arms without having to slip away at the crack of dawn so no one would see them, and he let himself enjoy that.  
In the morning, however, he still wrote a note and left while Benvolio was still sound asleep. 

His first instinct was to go to at the glass blower's again, maybe buy some fancy Venetian masks so they could have another go back their old pastime of crashing parties - this time not as real people that could be recognized and kicked out, but nameless boys, faceless ghosts - no, he needed to focus. Benvolio would not be impressed with his romantic gestures if he blew all their savings without telling him. He went straight to the goldsmith.

"I come straight from my wedding night." He cheerfully announced for no reason at all when he walked in the shop.

The man at the work table smirked at his words. "And the lady let you hop in her bed before you bought the wedding ring?"

Mercutio nodded and skipped about the scaffolds, peeking about the exposed rings.   
"What can I say? She loves me for the rakehell I am." If Benvolio was still a Montague he would buy him turquoise and silver, but he clearly didn't want to be one anymore, and moreover he had always favored green over blue and Mercutio could definitely not afford emeralds.  
"How much for this?" He asked, pointing at an amber one - way too strange a choice for Benvolio's taste, but the flecked brown color reminded him of his eyes. 

The goldsmith laughed when he blanched at the price. "This much for something that just drips from trees?" He complained.

The goldsmith clapped his hand on his shoulder.  
"Let's see. What about a simple ring with some romantic verse of your choosing etched on the border? Maids like those even better than stones - most maids, at least - and it should be easier on your pockets." 

Mercutio was about to say no, for Benvolio had never enjoyed love poetry and always had some very pungent words for his and Romeo's childhood attempts, but then he changed his mind. "Is this too long?" He asked, writing on a piece of parchment _da mi basia mille deinde centum_ \- "Give me a thousand kisses and a hundred more", which Benvolio had never needed to beg of him.

He would tease him about the previous verses though - _live and love, and all the whispers of judgemental old men, let's value them a penny, nothing more_ \- say Benvolio would have needed someone to follow him around and scream it in his ears every few hours, day and night. Benvolio would roll his eyes and say "I _am_ a judgemental old man" or "that's not any different than what I already get tolerating _you_ following me around", smiling with that superior, long suffering half-grin, and Mercutio completely lost his grip on anything. 

"It's good." The goldsmith snapped him out of his daydreaming. "And it will come with a little discount, for I have to leave for Verona by tonight and you are going to have to trust my apprentice with it."

"Verona! What for?”

“Two… rather odd families want golden statues of their children on their tombs. Fourteen year old girl and fifteen year old boy, although I'll have to make them look grown up and regal.”

Mercutio laughed. "I understand. I've had way too many paintings that turned this carrot top a respectable gold." 

If Benvolio was here, he'd definitely tell him that he was attracting too much attention and this curiosity was giving away that he was from there and he should shut up, nod politely and go about his business, but he could never help curiosity. " But why so many dead young people?" He tried his best imitation of detached gossip. "Is there a plague there?"

The goldsmith shook his head. "No, it's actually a very pretty story, in a certain sense." His mouth quirked up in a smile. Understandably, he didn't seem to find it necessary to ask if Mercutio wanted to hear. "Well, two stories. They seem to agree the two children got married in secret against their wishes and turned up dead in the girl's crypt three days later. But the girl's family wrote that the other one - scoundrels of the worst kind, obviously - sent their son in their home to steal their precious daughter's purity, but he was so changed by her angelic virtue he couldn't help but take her for his lawful bride. Then she tragically died in her sleep, and the poor boy sneaked in their crypt and took a vial of poison to die in her loving arms." 

Mercutio snorted laughing. This made their own romantic escape sound far wiser and less dramatic. "And the other?"

"The other writes the girl's family - heartless monsters - locked the poor little thing in their crypt when she refused to marry an old creep thrice her age. Their valiant son went down to rescue her, but when he got there she had already stabbed herself in despair and he died of a broken heart."

Mercutio felt a little shiver, forcing himself to recall how many other odd families were in Verona. "They usually say that broken heart nonsense about girls, don't they?" 

The goldsmith shrugged. "Oh, I have no doubt the lad killed himself in this one too. I don't blame the father for not wanting people to know, I have children too. But the story that's running on the streets is that he had been exiled for murder - the man had killed his best friend in front of him, that city is a battlefield - and his brother had gone missing just a few days before. A fifteen year old boy, taken from his family, his wife had just died, it's no wonder, and it's not for men to judge-"

"Brother? He had a brother?" Mercutio gasped, a little bit of hope cracking up in his voice through the oppressive darkness.

"Just his cousin, I think, but his father says they grew up together as brothers. It was hard to read it, I'll tell you…" 

Mercutio heard the shop door bang behind him and the suffocating midday sun on his skin, but the world seemed to have plunged into darkness. He blinked frantically, as if he could open his eyes and find himself safe in bed in Benvolio's arms or back in the square where just a few days ago he had twirled Romeo around and called him silly goose, but there was no escape. Romeo dead, Romeo poisoned and dying alone in the dark clutching at a dead girl's hand for reassurance for who else did he have anymore to ask that of? 

He slammed his fist against the wall and fell over howling. It had seemed so unavoidable, to choose between the two of them just as he had been made to choose between Montague and Capulet years earlier, that he couldn't possibly be so happy forever - yet now he had done it it had killed him, the same way it had probably killed Tybalt, spiraling down in his hatred all alone. He saw Romeo's hurt, disappointed eyes flash within him in a thousand variations - to his lewd jokes, his fighting, his cynical remarks, all the brothel trips and drunken revels he ended up moping through as he and Benvolio danced and whispered all the words Romeo didn't know yet in each other's ears - most of all, to their laughing at him, that had started being the same every one of them occasionally got when they messed up somehow, but them turned different. 

He thought it so unavoidable, that he was already drifting away whatever they did, that he had to choose - but when had he ever been able to get one fucking thing right anyway? He really just wanted to lie down now and let every little fly and worm and anyone who wanted their share of him to come and take their part of him until he never had to fucking choose again.

He embraced the thought for a moment, savored it, closed his eyes and spread out his arms, for a split second he even imagined Romeo waiting for him, whatever he was if anywhere at all.  
It didn't last and he opened his eyes to Benvolio's angry-worried-disappointed face, very much claiming every single part of him.  
"What happened? I couldn't find you anywhere and you were out for so long. Have you managed to get in a fight already?" 

Mercutio sat up, cleared his throat and tried to speak, but all he could manage was breaking into sobs. He didn't want to tell him. He couldn't shatter him like this, but more selfishly, he couldn't say that word again and not go insane. Romeo would be upset and pester him and probably tear up himself, but Benvolio wouldn't ask questions if he just bowed his head and took his scolding. He'd kiss him, embrace him, mutter some comforting words, take him to bed with a flagon of wine or, at worst, put him in bed with a mug of chamomile every time he acted up. It would be so easy. He wasn't the one who didn't deserve to be happy and at peace anyway. But he knew he couldn't. He just nodded when Benvolio softened up and suggested going somewhere he could cry and talk in peace and followed after him like a dead man going to the gallows.

Once they were in the secrecy of their room Benvolio kissed the tears from his cheeks, then sat down on the bed and held his arms out to him invitingly, but the thought of accepting his comfort right now made him guilty to the point of disgust. He crumpled on the other end of the room instead, back against the wall. Benvolio frowned, then followed after him, putting an arm around his waist 

He curled up in a ball, forehead d pressed against his knees, the words hurtling like stones down his throat. "Romeo's dead."  
He felt his back shake from the impact of the words like a bow bouncing back after the throw, he felt Benvolio's hand stiffen on his shoulder and he could hear his forehead furrowing in shock and hear the thoughts going through his head, spinning and rationalizing to find a way to laugh at his addled delusions and call it a day - _oh Romeo, Romeo how did I think I could live without you?_

"Romeo is safe in Mantua" Benvolio started again, stroking his back. "Safer there than in Verona, you must agree, right? You had a bad dream, and you should have woken me up instead of wandering off in the street in this state, but that's alright. We had a couple very strange days, you're not well and" smirk, giggle "I fear I didn't let you rest enough last night. It's only normal you'd be all rattled, but I promise everything will be alright." 

His kiss, feather light on his cheek, felt like Tybalt's blade. He shrieked so high he couldn't hear it, his hands closing uselessly into fists. This time Benvolio didn't speak, only held him tight - _just let him get it all out and it will be over, you know how he is,_ wasn't that how they always put it?  
Crazy and crybaby and smug mama hen, they were always all fucking nuisances. When had they decided one of them was worse enough to leave behind?

"Alright, let's see." Benvolio gently cupped his face in his hands. "Why don't you try telling me what you think happened? It will make it easier." He thought for a moment. "A Capulet revenge? If I made this sort of mess for every time I had nightmares about that boy getting himself killed when we were children, I swear-"

"He killed himself"

"Oh" Benvolio bit his lip, but went on smiling "Oh, that is even worse, poor thing. But why did he do that?"

“He had married the Capulets’ daughter…”

“Niece. That Rosaline girl is their niece.” 

Mercutio rubbed his eyes, too exhausted to day anything. "He married some Capulet girl and then she died or… the goldsmith told me maybe they locked her in the crypt because she didn't want to marry…"

"Wait, the goldsmith? You were told, and didn't see it happen? That's quite a strange dream. What would you even be doing at the goldsmith's, if this was all real?" 

The thought of explaining to Benvolio all his idiotic ideas of wedding rings and poetry verses twisted his gut so badly he could only cling to him and hide his face in his chest.  
"Just... just let me explain" he begged hoarsely.

"Alright, alright" Benvolio replied, but still discreetly reached for the wine.

"He married some Capulet girl and she died or killed herself. He found out and broke in the crypt and poisoned himself and now they want to put gold statues on their graves like that fucking fixes-" he doubled over, unable to go on even a second more. Benvolio took a long swig, then tried to brush Mercutio's hair back and smiled. 

"This sounds awful, sweetheart. I'm sorry I was so harsh on you - it's normal you're worried for him. But this doesn't really seem like it could be true - first of all I really don't know why anyone here would know so much about this whole affair. Rosaline is bound to a nunnery and the daughter is thirteen, I don't see why they'd force either of them to marry." 

He rose up and paced nervously, twirling the bottle in his hands. "I admit breaking into a tomb just to die sounds a lot like him, but I doubt he'd know where to find poison and the tools to crack the place open, and in a foreign city, don't you think? And most of all, this is _Romeo_ we're talking about. If he had found some girl who he didn't scare off and he was about to get married, you really think he could help telling us? It's simply-" 

Mercutio felt his breath bitch mid sentence, then glass shattering against the floor. He looked up, blank with terror. Benvolio stepped back and froze, wide eyed, trembling hands clasped on his arms trying and failing to keep still.  
"No, after everything - there really is no fucking way he'd tell us, is it?"  
Mercutio wanted to rise and wrap his arms around him, let him cry on his shoulder, but his head was weighted down with memories of the three of them piled up in the same bed, hugging and giggling through any bad thing life had thrown at them, and he knew he could do nothing alone. _Nothing will ever feel complete again._

"No, he knows I'd tell his parents right away, and I should have, marriage, and to a Capulet? That was much, much too big for him and he had to do it all alone." Benvolio went on, pacing round the room. "I wouldn't have left if I knew what he was getting into, fuck, fuck-"  
He leaned against the wall and buried his face in his hands. 

_You would have screamed at him and called him a fool for getting tricked by a Capulet little girl,_ Mercutio thought, so bitterly he could taste it on the back of his throat _and I would have told him to find a more comfortable hole to hop in._

He felt his fists tighten and for a moment the thought of jumping at him, slapping him, screaming until he could feel nothing sent a wave of relief through his body, but he rose on his knees and then stopped again, disgusted with himself. _He's not the one who chose wrong._  
He stared numbly at the glass shards in the wine puddle. He heard Benvolio sniffle. "It's not fair. Why did it have to be now? We could have helped him."

"No." He wasn't sure if he meant that they couldn't have helped him or that it wasn't fair or that he would never even have considered killing himself for a girl he'd known three days if they hadn't ran. He didn't have the strength to say anything more anyway. He ran his finger on the edge of a glass shard and tried to imagine what he had been thinking in his last moment - was he praying they would be waiting for him on the other side, all smiling and happy to see him, Mercutio and Benvolio and the Capulet girl? 

Was - he held the glass against the vein of his wrist, the same Montague-blue of Romeo's eyes, trying to understand what he was feeling for once in his whole life - was losing one person you loved enough to want nothing more to do with the world? He cried out in rage and drove the shard down the side of his arm, throwing his head back as the pain flashed through his body.  
_It's not enough. We've killed him._

Colors darted beneath his closed eyelids. Benvolio leapt to his side from the other side of the room, screamed and shook him, sobbing so violently his words were a disconnected, muffled sequence of _What_ and _Why_ and _Will you leave me too?_

I don't want to die, he meant to say, just to suffer and hate and I'd rather hate myself than you, but he didn't know what would come out if he tried to speak. He just shoved the shallow cut in Benvolio's face and dropped his head on his shoulder, huddling onto him as if his touch could fill the emptiness somehow.  
"I want Romeo" he admitted and burst into shameful tears, seeing plainly on Benvolio's face that he knew what he meant - _I have no use for your tenderness. We'll never be enough for each other again, why lie to yourself?_

Still, Benvolio weakly kissed his hand and led him to the bed, kicked the rest of the glass in a corner and bandaged up his arm and knuckles, looking down, as if Mercutio had never fucking seen him cry. A little later, when he couldn't stand to look at him and pretended to fall asleep, he bound his wrists together too. 

Mercutio felt he couldn't blame him for that. He just laid back and tried to dream of Romeo, but his dreams were grey and silent. Just a moment, right before dawn, he saw a glimpse of him sitting cross-legged on the floor of the hut, reading from his riddle book. "I can't be bought but I'm stolen with a glance/I am priceless to two but worthless to one" he whispered, frowning. "I think it's love, but -" 

"Love can be bought for three gold crosses right behind Piazza delle Erbe," Mercutio had said, stopping him beforehe went on another rant about even a secret love who couldn't fly farther than the lover's own chest was an unstoppable force that could only change a man for the better. But in the dream, Romeo looked up and smiled and said "I think it's priceless to however many people" and Mercutio woke up before he could ask him what he meant exactly. 

He jumped slightly, startled by the lack of Benvolio in his bed. He was standing by the window, staring out and picking at a loose thread of his sleeve, but he turned around as soon as he felt him stir. His eyes were red and empty.

"How are you?" He laughed at the absurdity of his own question. "Sorry for this."  
He untied his hands. Mercutio cupped his face and kissed him softly on the lips, surprised to find he still loved him. He was scared all his love would be dried up when the sun rose. He wondered if it would last.

"It's fine" he winced at how cracked and sepulchral his voice sounded "I understand. But I'm not interested in dying at all."

Benvolio smiled weakly. "I know. You're just angry."

"At myself, mostly." He reassured him. "There was no fucking reason to go so suddenly, I-" 

"Stop. We did this together. I can't live my whole life blaming other people being rash and dumb for everything that ever goes wrong." He brushed his hair back and drummed his finger on Mercutio's cheek. "Did you understand which Capulet girl it was in the end?"

Mercutio blinked, startled. "I still think the daughter, but I'm not sure. Why?" 

Benvolio shook his head. "It's just… I was thinking, he got _married_ right before he died. That's big. He must have been so happy. I… don't think we would have thrown him a bachelor party or anything, if we knew, but if that was the last happy moment he got… I'd like to know."

Mercutio sniffled and tried to smile. "Honestly, the least we can do is go find out." 

***

Benvolio walked in the garden with his head low and his hat pulled down all the way over his eyes, clutching the letter against his chest, but despite this caution his heart was hammering against his chest. It wasn't so much out of shame that he had broken in his own house like a thief - he had far more reasons to be ashamed now than when he was a bossy little child trying to wrangle Romeo and Mercutio from climbing trees to spy into people's windows. Mostly he was trying to keep the memories under control - he had managed the whole journey, only smiling gently and embracing Mercutio when he felt the need to share some with him, trying not to listen. 

But in the darkness of the garden everything was heightened and familiar. He had the feeling that if he took even a look around he would see everything all the way to Romeo taking his first steps in the grass patch under the apricot tree, and they would end up finding him curled up sobbing under that same tree the next morning. So he just climbed over the well and ran as fast as he could to their hiding place, without looking back to say goodbye. He rolled his eyes instinctively when he saw Mercutio standing in anticipation at the threshold of the hut. 

"You should be sleeping" he muttered. His milk-white face and the dark shadows under his eyes witnessed that he could use that, and Benvolio had held some hope that he could read Romeo's words alone first, that he wouldn't have to confront them right away. He swallowed and walked in as Mercutio sat down and lit a circle of candles around them. 

He sat down in his lap, wound Mercutio's arms around his waist, grasped his hand for strength, but the words were like swimming tadpoles on the page. He burrowed his face in Mercutio's neck. "I can't."

"You're seventeen and it should be time you learn your letters" Mercutio said completely uninspired, out of habit, but he did take the letter from his hands and read out loud. He almost wanted to stop him, but the idea of not listening to the last words Romeo had to say after everything they just have failed to listen to, for it to come to this, filled him with self loathing. 

_Dear mother and father  
I pray you not to weep for me. An exiled murderer is not much for a son, and if you had known when we bid farewell how everything came to pass, I'm sure you wouldn't have been so forgiving. I know you will think that none of this would have happened if I had been a man and fought Tybalt when he wanted me to. _

Mercutio snorted. "Silly. Would just have been executed instead of exiled. All' this trouble to save my skin." 

_I know Mercutio was mad at me, but deep inside I know that he wouldn't have wanted me to be a killer, or he wouldn't have intervened._

Eyeroll, sniffle. "That's his business, I just wanted him alive."

"Must you comment? Have some respect." Benvolio whined, although he was grateful. He doubted he could take more than a few sentences in a row. 

_I don't know if I can explain how much I loved Juliet in a letter. We were hoping once we revealed our marriage you would be able to meet her and then you couldn't have helped loving her, but fate has chosen differently for us. Just know I met her at Lord Capulet's ball, we swore love to each other under her window and married honorably. She was so sincere and sweet and never meant anything of this to happen to me. I-_ Mercutio's voice trembled. _I used to feel like no one would ever love me. That there was something wrong or ridiculous about me because I kept falling in love in vain. Now I realize that was very silly, but when she said she loved me I felt like I was worthy of it for the first time in my life. I can't live without her. I'm sorry. I don't know if I'll ever see her again, because she's surely in heaven and Mercutio too, but I still can't go on alone. I know it's stupid, but it's a bit late to do things smartly now. I suppose Benvolio will tell me that, since he's the one who I will meet again for sure, wherever people who died for love go. I'm just not made for being alone, I guess, although I used to enjoy it. But that was a whole other Romeo: now I've been in love and I've known some things I never wanted to know and I know better. I'm sorry. Farewell and forgive me if you can._

Mercutio almost threw the letter away with a frustrated scream, but then he changed his mind and pressed it to his heart. "Well" he muttered brokenly "does this bring you anymore peace?" 

Benvolio imagined Romeo scrawling these words before riding back home to his death, the desperate tears running down his cheek. Would it have changed anything if he had been here to stop him and pull him in a hug, convince him there was a life waiting for him? It was unbearable to even think about. "I think… I had no idea he would think I had killed myself after you." He laughed bitterly, although his voice came out as a mouse's squeak. "This had to be the one fucking time he followed my example." 

Mercutio wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Well, I have to give it to him that he did figure us out on his own. Should have given him more credit."  
The notion that this, of all things, was what they should have given him some credit on would make him genuinely laugh, but he didn't trust laughter not to fade into tears anymore.

"Volio" Mercutio whispered what were we expecting? I mean, we knew we'd end up lying to him as to everyone else and we knew how much it would hurt him.  
"I don't know" he rubbed his eyes, looking for whatever part of him that still thought rationally - most of him was just telling him he was a murderer, that he had loved his little brother so much, that he had wanted to shield him and protect him from everything only to throw him in his grave as soon it suited him. "He was always running off and getting lost in his head lately. I... we couldn't really think he didn't love us anymore, could we?" 

"I don't know. Maybe? I know I never stopped fucking teasing him because I was scared if i let him be he'd get tired of us and the trio would fall apart. For a couple poems and over the top crushes and making friends with the old priest - fuck. I'll never tell you off for fussing unneeded again." He hid his face in Benvolio's neck and sniffled again - he had ran out of tears at some point during the ride back to Verona. Benvolio stroked his hair. 

"I know. That's was just him growing up, and I couldn't accept it. A little brother is always a little brother and... well, he found out who he was meant to be, and I kept thinking of him like he was still a child who would cry his eyes out and get over it and now he's buried with his wife. Fooled everyone in town while we thought he was still hanging on Rosaline Capulet's skirts." He tried to smile, though he had no idea if that made it better of worse. "I guess he's nice he got to grow up at least, though what he got to know of life was so sad." 

Mercutio grimaced. "We were such great kids. We deserved better than having to grow up."

"I know."

The idea of having to go the rest of that twisted road without Romeo was unbearable, oppressive. It would pass, he knew that. They hadn't gone this far just to give up, and he knew that if they could ask Romeo he would somehow still be happy for them and thrilled about their romantic adventure. But nothing would ever been the same again.  
"I know. But I think it would have sucked a lot less to do it all together."


End file.
